Old Edgewood school to be reborn as Girl Scouts leadership center

By Elaine Ayala :
May 23, 2012
: Updated: May 24, 2012 2:00am

Melisa Bombella pins Gamma Girl ribbons on Girl Scouts as the Southwest Texas council and Edgewood ISD combine to start a center at the former Coronado/Escobar school campus on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

Photo By Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News

Rose González Pérez is assisted by Councilman Ray Lopez as she unveils a sketch of the West Side Girl Scout Leadership Center. “The opportunities here are endless,” she said. Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

Photo By Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News

Mykayla Amador (center) from Brentwood Middle School listens as Rose González Pérez, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas, explains how the center will help girls and families. Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

Photo By Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News

Girl Scouts line up to get their pins as the Southwest Texas council and Edgewood ISD combine to start a center at the former Coronado/Escobar school campus on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

Photo By Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News

Girl Scouts recite their pledge as the Southwest Texas council and Edgewood ISD combine to start a center at the former Coronado/Escobar school campus on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

Photo By Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News

Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas CEO Rose González Pérez speaks as the Southwest Texas council and Edgewood ISD combine to start a center at the former Coronado/Escobar school campus on Wednesday, May 23, 2012.

As more than 100 teen girls on the city's West Side were inducted as Scouts Wednesday, the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas and the Edgewood Independent School District announced they will turn a shuttered elementary school into a scouting center.

Edgewood Superintendent José A. Cervantes called the location on César E. Chávez Boulevard a prime place for a Scouting center, a “safe space” for girls, Scout leaders and families.

Officials acknowledged the “win-win” for both the school district and the scouting council. It provides a campus to a group that needs a larger space and it soothes criticism from parents and neighborhoods who fought Coronado/Escobar's closing last year, a response by Edgewood to state funding cuts.

A staff of seven will run the center, which will house girl-leadership programs and initiatives, including Gamma Sigma Girls and Gamma Sigma Pearls, the sorority-like leadership programs that inducted more than 100 teen girls Wednesday at Edgewood's Toltech T-STEM Academy.

Open year-round and after school, the center will serve as a base of operations for almost 5,000 Girl Scouts and 1,000 adult volunteers on the West Side but is expected to become a gathering point for girls in 10 school districts.

It will also be open to girls in the council's 21 counties, which reach to the U.S.-Mexican border in Eagle Pass, and offer programming during Spring Break and summer. The facility will allow for overnight events.Scouting officials said the center will have computer and robotics labs where Scouts can work on analytical and problem-solving skills, and where adult programs including public speaking, financial literacy, parenting and healthy living are planned to draw more adult Hispanic Scout leaders. Some 59 percent of the council's Scouts are Hispanic.

“We're the fastest-growing Girl Scout council in the nation, and we've been on the West Side for 20 years,” said Rose González Pérez, the council's CEO. “The Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas wanted to expand our footprint to better meet the needs of our girls. This is a holistic approach for girls and families.”

The group will sign a three-year lease with Edgewood to use 40,000 square feet of the school, including its gymnasium and cafeteria. “We've thrown some numbers around,” but details of the lease are still being worked out, Cervantes said.

González Pérez said San Antonio will feel “big ripple effects” from Wednesday's announcement for years to come, adding, “The opportunities here are endless.”

The West Side Development Corp., a city-run economic-development entity that works in the historically underserved area, was called instrumental in forging the deal.

“We played matchmaker to a certain extent,” said executive director Ramon Flores.

“This supply-and-demand model can be replicated throughout the country,” he added. “It's great. It's going to be a real anchor on the West Side.”